


Revenge

by bedb



Category: Cinematic Universe, Marvel, Original - Fandom
Genre: AU Western, F/M, Murder, Rape, Revenge, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-06-02 16:01:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6572647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedb/pseuds/bedb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man is murdered beaten to death by a vengeful father. But what happens when the dead seek their own revenge?  What happens when a living woman falls in love with Revenge?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dying is hard

**Author's Note:**

> The Dell from Hell with the latest chapter of 1874 on it had another nervous breakdown. That chapter has to be rewritten, but this story has been gnawing at my brain for a long time. It is a combination of a story I wrote in High school called the Ghost of San Miguel, High Plains Drifter and Hurry Sundown by the Outlaws.

Jason Hooker was a bad man, the only son of a wealthy rancher, who took what he wanted. Tonight he wanted the saloon girl Maria. People say you can’t rape a working girl, but he beat her for good measure and left her lying in an alley between the Barton’s General Store and Banner’s Apothecary. She lay there for a good hour until the drifter happened by and stopped to help her.

Sam Wilson was the blacksmith and a man who minded his own business for the most part until that night when he saw the gunman carrying the girl down the sidewalk towards the doctor’s office. Maria had always been kind to him, and it pained him to see her beautiful face beaten to a pulp. Sam normally minded his own business. A town like San Miguel was not a friendly town to people who didn’t mind their own business, but Maria had been kind to him.

“Dr. Pym ain’t in!” he called to the gunman who wore his weapons low on his thighs.

“I need to take her somewhere,” the gunman said, Maria’s battered body easy in his arms. When the man turned towards him in the faint light, Sam could see an intelligent face covered by a week’s worth of beard.

“She stays at the Iron Man Saloon,” Sam offered and neared them. “Her boss is Mr. Stark.”

The pistolero gazed down the street and then headed that way. Sam followed. The armed man eased carefully into the saloon through the swinging doors, bringing everyone but one small group at a table to their feet. Stark circled his bar and stared in horror at Maria.  
“Who did this?” he demanded sharply and led the gunman up a flight of stairs to the rooms over the bar.

“I found her in an alley,” the stranger replied and entered the room behind Stark. “Tried to find Doc Pym but he’s out of town, I suppose.” He laid her gently on the bed while two of the girls entered the room to take care of her. Stark’s wife Pepper entered the room with a basin of water in hand.

“You men need to get out,” she growled. An attractive woman with pale blondish red hair, she hated gunmen as much as she hated drunks.

“Much obliged,” Stark said and indicated they should leave the room. “Let me buy you a drink.”

The two men returned downstairs where Stark poured the man a beer on the house. “What’s your name?” Stark asked curiously and poured himself a drink. The Iron Man Saloon was named after the knight suit standing up by the player piano. 

“Buck,” the man replied and swallowed a mouthful of cool foamy beer.

“You’re new in town,” one of the men at the table along the wall spoke up.

“Just passing through,” Buck answered casually and leaned his elbow against the bar so he could better see the man addressing him. “Letting my horse rest a day or two before moving on.” 

“Jason here owns one of the biggest spreads in the territory,” Stark explained and poured someone else a drink. “Hooker is a well known name in the territory.” 

Sam watched this all unfold from a small table near the doors. Jason Hooker was a bad man, a real bad man best left alone. Buck turned back to the bar and continued drinking his beer in peace, but Hooker was not finished with him. “Lucky you found Maria when you did. Lucky for her. Hope she don’t die.”

Buck glanced back, glass poised at his lips. “Yeah.”

“Think she’ll survive to tell us who did this?”

Sam stood up and eased towards the doors. Stark moved down the bar away from Buck, who took quick note of this. Turning back towards Hooker, leaning his elbows against the bar, he asked, “Are you implying something?”

“Just that it’s interesting that you brought her here.”

“Then I guess we need to ask her when she wakes up,” Buck said and ended the conversation. He had seen a hotel across the street and wanted a bed for the night. Turning back to Tony, he said, “Thanks for the beer.” Seeing Sam by the doors, he said, “I’m going to get a room and then I’ll bring my horse by.”

“I’ll be there,” Sam assured him after taking note of Hooker’s reaction. Hooker didn’t like that the pistolero had dismissed him so easily. Sam waited for Buck to pass before slipping outside behind him. Buck continued across the street to the Rogers’ boarding house and hotel, while he hurried back to his livery stable. 

 

Sharon Roger came out of a back room at the sound of the desk bell. The man standing there was rough looking but handsome with an easy smile and sharp clear blue eyes. Just the kind of man to attract her sister in law Natasha who had been married to her brother Bill. When he got killed in a mill accident, she and Steve took her in. Natasha joined her at the desk.

“How can I help you, Mr ..uh?”

“Buck,” the man answered his sharp eyes taking in both women. “Just Buck, and I’d like a room.”

“How long will you be staying?” Natasha asked curiously, her long red hair in sharp contrast to the long green dress she was wearing. Sharon could not help but notice the flirting. Like she said, just the kind of man to attract Natasha’s attention.

“Two days maybe three,” he answered and wrote his name in the book that Sharon passed to him.

“Two fifty a night,” Sharon said and looked down at the name. Sure enough ‘Buck’ was all he wrote. “In advance.”

Buck paid for three days and then taking his key, he went back outside to get his horse. Steve who had been busy in the back showed up at the desk and asked, “Who was that?”

“Buck,” Sharon answered with a patient smile for her husband. 

 

Buck arrived at the livery leading a handsome sorrel with a blaze and four white socks.  
“See that he gets enough to eat,” he said and pulled the saddle off the horse’s back. It was a lightweight saddle and void of any fancy tooling. In fact there wasn’t much fancy about Buck except for the gunbelt. Black and oiled to a sheen he wore it low on his thigh. An ivory gripped colt was stuck in a black leather holster. Slapping the horse on its broad rump as Sam led it to a stall already waiting for it, he pulled a cheroot out of his left breast pocket and lit it before heading back outside and down the street. 

 

Bobbi Barton stood on the sidewalk with a black shawl wrapped around her slender shoulders. The man coming down the street from the livery was handsome like a hollow flanked wolf, his long hair in desperate need of trimming. On the other end of the street Jason Hooker and the two men with him left the Iron Man Saloon laughing and cursing like the drunk men they were. Unhitching their horses, they mounted up to leave town when they spotted the stranger headed towards Roger’s hotel. Hooker was a mean drunk, and something about the stranger really upset him. 

In a show of intimidation, they rode up and circled him. When he’d had enough of their hoorahing, he dragged Jason off his horse and threw him to the ground. In the blink of an eye guns were drawn, and when it was over the stranger was still standing and the boys were packing a little extra lead. 

Pepper Stark looked out the window the moment the shooting started. Vermin killing each other off. Good. 

Bobbi pulled her shawl tighter as the men poured out of the saloon. The stranger straightened and what was a clear case of self-defense was suddenly not so clear. The announcement that Jason Hooker was dead sent a panic through the mob. Weapons came out and the stranger found himself being taken prisoner by the brave men of San Miguel. Self defense wasn’t much of a defense when the son of Big Jim Hooker was dead at your feet.

Steve Rogers, his wife Sharon and her cousin Natasha watched the men drag the prisoner to a jail cell that was little more than a cage. He was thrown inside and the door with its single window was locked. He could stay there and rot until Big Jim showed up. 

 

There was not a long wait. Big Jim and every man on his outfit rode into town at first light. A visit to Lang the undertaker to see his boy aroused such a hatred in Big Jim that the color of his face changed from white to red. Everyone up hurried outside to see what Jim was going to do to the stranger, among them Natasha and Bobbi.

Facing a lynch mob, the stranger faced it with cool calm. He was innocent of murder and only shot to defend himself, but Big Jim did not want to hear that. But lynching was not his intent. He had something worse in mind. Realizing too late what they had planned for him, he fought now trying to force them to shoot him. Someone cold cocked him on the back of the skull with the barrel of his gun, stunning the stranger into submission. 

There was a heavy post planted in the ground near a fountain that poured water continuously from a small spout. They tied the man to the post, his hands held over his head by a heavy snubbing ring. One of Hooker’s men used a heavy bowie knife to cut the vest and shirt off the stranger, exposing his bare back to the whip in Hooker’s hand. Unfurling the twisted rawhide, Hooker snapped it once and brought it down hard on the man’s back. 

A man skilled with a whip could beat someone to death without ever hitting the same spot twice on a body. Each stroke bit deeper into the stranger’s back and sent blood splattering. To his credit the stranger held his screams inside. But when It became a game to see how long they could stretch out the beating before letting the man die, Natasha couldn’t stand it any longer. Grabbing a porcelain cup that someone had left on the cross post in front of the hotel, she ran to the fountain and filled it full of water. Big Jim was taking a break to let his arm rest. Seeing a beautiful woman surprised Big Jim. “Whatch you doin’?” he asked suspiciously. 

“I don’t want him going to hell thinking we’re all monsters,” Natasha said and held the cup to the stranger’s bloody lips. He drank all he could and then lowered his head.

“You fuck him?”

“I don’t know him!” she snapped back. "Damn you!"

“Get now before I skin you, too,” Big Jim warned and unfurled the whip again.

Steve ran up and grabbed her arm literally pulling her away from the fountain. To avoid any trouble with Hooker, he made her and Sharon go on back inside. It was bad enough that he couldn’t look away. 

The stranger died under the lash. Lang the Undertaker showed up to claim the body and with Sam’s help got him into the buckboard. Steven handed over the money paid to Sharon on the previous night. “Much obliged,” Lang said and took it. 

“Don’t you dare bury that son of a bitch near my boy!” Hooker threatened. “Just throw his carcass in a ditch and let the buzzards at it.”

“I’m sure I can come up with something equitable for both parties,” Lang assured them. 

By evening four men were buried in boot hill, three with head stones and one without. By the end of summer no one could quite remember where the unmarked grave was. But there is a time of the year in the late fall/early winter when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. What most people forget is that the dead don’t know about calendars or things like that. When the wind moans and the nights are long and dark, a horseman may cross that barrier back into the land of the living.


	2. between life and death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Stranger has his first taste of revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a special edit will be added

A stiff wind blew in from the north chilling San Miguel with the promise of an early winter. Natasha pulled her dress over her head and draped it over the back of the chair in her room. The corset came off next leaving her in a camisole and knee length bloomers. Deciding it was going to be too chilly to leave the window open, she pulled her covers down, blew out the lamp and moved to close the window.

The moon was dancing among the clouds casting long shadows on the ground. Among the whistling of the wind and shaking of leafless trees she heard the slow steady hoof beats of a horse moving down the street. Ducking behind the white lace certain, she watched as a man on a strange looking horse rode down the deserted street and drew rein in front of the Iron Man Saloon, which was still open although no one was about. Weather turning, everyone with good sense was home in bed. He looked around for a moment while looping is reins over the hitching post. Everything about him was cloaked in darkness but for one brief moment when he lifted his head and looked up at her. There was no mistaking it; he was looking right at her.

She quickly lowered the window and ran to get in bed. 

 

Maria still had thirty minutes before she could lock up for the night when the stranger walked in, his spurs chinking loudly on the wooden floor. He was handsome in a wild untamed way, his sharp eyes taking in the room with one quick glance. A man like that was pure trouble and sent a shiver through her.

“What’ll it be?” she asked him.

“Whiskey,” he growled softly and pulled a five dollar gold piece out of the leather vest beneath his poncho. 

She set the glass in front of him and poured the house brand into it. Since Jason Hooker had beaten and raped her, she had become too fearful to really be around men. If there were other people in the bar maybe she wouldn’t be so scared.

He toyed with the glass a moment and then poured the shot down his throat. “One more,” he said and pushed the change from the five back towards her. “Real quiet town you have here,” he said, and she suspected he wasn’t making conversation just to be hearing himself speak.

“I’m closing soon,” she said as a way of answering him without saying too much.

He smiled and then poured the second shot down his throat. He was finished. “Is there a place where I might find a bed?” he asked in that same soft growl. Maria’s eyes grew wide with fear. Was he wanting…? Of course he was, he was a man. Pepper said she needed to get over it. “Is there a livery or barn? My horse won’t mind sharing.”

“Yes!,” she answered so quickly the man smiled in amusement. “Down the street, but he’s not there right now. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“Thank you,” he said politely and straightened himself. Leaving the change on the bar, he walked back outside to get his horse, his spurs breaking the unearthly silence of the night. Maria followed him to lock up and stood there a moment watching the man just stand there with his back to her, the wind playing havoc with his long hair. What was he looking for on that dark street?

Untying the black horse with the pure white face, he led him down the street towards the livery with its empty corral and haystack. Maria locked the door. 

 

Not many people needing to board horses these days so the appearance of the strange looking pinto in the corral caught Sam Wilson by surprise. A big handsome black horse with a pure white face and two blue eyes was taking his breakfast at the haystack just between the slats of the corral. A careful inspection of the hay told him there was a man lying inside of it, his heavy spurred boots poking out of it. 

“Does he belong to you?” he asked the gelding and patted him on the neck.

The man inside of the haystack must have thought Sam was talking to him because he answered, “Yeah.” Crawling out he wiped the dried grass off his poncho. “Took my chances on bedding down here,” he said easily and reached under his poncho to pull a small cigar out of his inside shirt pocket. He stuck it inside his mouth but didn’t light it.

“Well, dollar a day for the horse, fifty cents for you,” Sam said half in jest.

“I may try the hotel this morning,” the man returned with a grin. “Is there anyplace where I can get breakfast.”

“There’s the hotel, but I’d recommend the Mexican cantina. They are not as particular about their customers. You look like you’ve been ridden hard and put up wet.”

“You have no idea,” the man said and lit his cigar. 

Sam watched the man walk away before turning back to the horse. A customer! Dollar a day… hard cash. Damn! He forgot to get the money in advance. “Remind me to ask him when he returns,” he told the horse. The animal, hay sticking out the sides of its mouth, turned his head to look at him. “Damn you have blue eyes. Don’t do that. Look away.” 

Natasha was unlocking the hotel’s main door and locking it in place so it could air out the lobby when she noticed the gunman walking down the still empty street. Since Hooker’s threat back in the summer to make San Miguel pay for his son’s death back in the summer, visitors were scarce. Watching him walk, long and loose jointed, was a pleasure. He was a man used to horses and more. A man who clearly knew how to ride…God, was she that lonesome? 

The man spotted her and stopped. They looked at each other a moment before he came over. “I was wondering if I could ask you a question,” he said easily, a lazy smile turning his handsome slightly bearded face into something carnal and dangerous.

“What do you need?” she asked and checked the hanging pot with it’s dead flowers. She really needed to take that down.

“Eventually a room,” the man said, “but what time does the store open, and where might I get a bath?”

Natasha turned back to him and answered, “The store will be opening shortly, and you can get a bath at the barber shop just beyond the cantina. An old Mexican gives a nice shave they say.”

The man grinned and scratched his chin. “I suppose that wouldn’t hurt either. Laundry?”

“That end of town. Senora Filipina does an excellent job with shirts.”

“Thanks.” He continued down the street towards the Mexican quarter. She watched him while fiddling with the hanging pots and their dead flowers. Reaching the fountain, he stopped and looked up at the heavy post. Natasha wished they would dig the post up after Hooker beat that man to death on it, but when the wagons came in, the teamsters used the ring to tie their teams to. Barton, who had not been there, refused to let Bobbi talk about Jason Hooker’s killing, and eventually she backed up the murder tale. Anything to keep BIG Jim son of a bitch Hooker happy. Lot of good it’s going to do them when Hooker gets back from Denver. Steven was prepared to defend the hotel, but that would be pure suicide. Better to pack up and move on. 

 

The gunman entered the cantina and was immediately greeted by the smell of hot spicy food. Hunger gnawed at his belly; it had been awhile, but the man running the place stepped up and said in heavily accented English, “Good morning, sir. How can I help you?” 

“Whatever you’ve got cooking smells good,” the pistolero answered. “I was told I could get breakfast here.”

“Yes. Please sit, and Rosa will bring you a plate. Coffee?”

“That would be good,” the man said and took a seat with his back to the wall. It wasn’t long before a pretty Mexican girl arrived with a plate of tortillas, mole and stewed pork and coffee and set them in front of him. “It’s been awhile since I’ve eaten anything this good,” he admitted and wrapped the meat and mole in a tortilla.   
Natasha was taking a broom to the porch when she noticed San Miguel’s unusual guest coming down the street from the cantina. He spotted her and doffed his hat before pointing at Barton’s Store. She couldn’t help but grin back and nod at him. There was a wagon in front of it and Clint and a man from the Lazy Y were loading it with enough supplies to last the rest of the winter.

 

Bobbi heard the man enter the store, his boots and spurs hard on the old wooden floor, and looked up. He was handsome and as wild as the wind that rattled the big glass window. “Can I help you?’ 

“Trousers,” he said curiously.

“Over there,” she said and pointed to a stack of trousers on the shelf. He went to the shelf and checked out several before deciding on a pair of dark pants. “Is that all you ‘re getting?”

“For now,” he said and paid for the clothing. Returning to the barber, he paid for a bath and shave, and for Senora Filipina to wash the clothes he took off. Slipping into the clean water, he smiled and leaned his head back. A young boy kept the water hot, until he was ready to get out. A shave followed. Leaving his dirty clothes behind, he threw the poncho over his head and left. 

 

Natasha was at the front desk going over the guest register when the freshly shaven stranger walked in. Something about his spurs struck a cord within her but she didn’t know why. “You look pleased with yourself,” she remarked and turned the book around.

“Being clean and well fed always puts a smile on my face,” he replied easily.

Seeing his bare arms, she said, “Please tell me you have trousers on.” And she peered over the counter to see that he did have trousers on and his gunbelt, the holster strapped low on his thigh. 

“Hoping otherwise?” he teased.

Natasha looked up at his wicked smile with surprise on her face that slowly gave way to her own smile. “You are bold,” she teased him. 

“It’s been awhile since I’ve been in the company of a beautiful woman, I forget myself. I am sorry,” he apologized. “When Senora Filipina gets finished with my clothes, she’s going to send them here.” 

“I take that means you want a room?”

“If you have one.”  
“Take your pick,” she said and turned to the key box. “We have one guest right now, a man from Wyoming here selling horses.” 

“Then I’ll take one in the back,” he said and reached into his back pocket for his money purse.

Natasha got the key down and laid it on the counter. “One fifty a night.”

“Three days then,” he said and handed her the money. “Anything extra add it to my bill.”

“Will you sign the book?”

“I prefer not,” he said and returned the wallet to his pocket. He smiled one more, and it was charming, but he made no effort to sign the book. 

That was odd. “Are you here on business?”

“You could say that. I’m going to kill Jim Hooker.”

That stopped Natasha abruptly. “Are you mad? Do you know who he is?”

“Quite well. Will you bring my clothes up?”

“I ought to throw you out.”

His expression softened. “Why?”

“Because Jim Hooker will kill you and I’m tired of seeing him kill people.”

“He can’t kill me,” he said with a reassuring smile. “Promise.”

“I bet that’s what the last man thought,” she snapped as he headed up the stairs. In spite of her better judgment, she took his shirt and trousers up to him when they came in. She had caught him napping, and while it appeared that the knock on the door had startled him a little, he was all smiles and manners when he saw it was her.

“I’d invite you in, but people might talk,” he said easily.

“We don’t want that,” Natasha replied with a wry grin. 

“Not now anyway,” he answered coyly and closed the door.

Natasha did not want to admit it, but she was attracted to him. Handsome, polite, witty… if only he wasn’t after Hooker. What would Steve say once he found out? 

After a supper of steak and potatoes, he flirted briefly with Sharon at the front desk while her husband listened from his desk in the office, and then proceeded across the street to the saloon. Maria was at the bar and poured him a beer. He took note of a poker game going on along the wall and paid his way in. It was low stakes as most of the men were small businessmen with a stray cowboy at the table.

Pepper came down stairs and immediately spotted the stranger at the table. Amidst the drab colored respectable men and the one lost cowboy who needed to get his lazy butt home, he was the night all dark and mysterious. As long as he had money.

“Maria, go see if they need seconds,” she told the woman wiping down the bar.

Maria dropped the rag behind the counter and went to see if the men needed refills. The businessmen minus the cowboy took refills on their beer, while the stranger opted for something with a little more bite. Maria filled mugs with beer but Pepper poured the whiskey and carried the glass for her. 

Pepper set the glass down as he reached for it and for a moment her fingers touched his hand. Stars exploded in her head and for a moment she was looking out her window at Hooker beating a man to death. In that second she relived the anger and hate and pleasure she felt at watching a man die in such a brutal fashion. He withdrew his hand and she found herself staring down at his troubled face. 

“Two bits,” she managed to say. He tossed it on the table.

The flash of memory haunted Pepper. The stranger’s expression raw and dark ate at her thoughts. Locking the saloon down after clearing everyone out, she went upstairs to join Anthony in their room. He had drunk himself to sleep again, afraid of what Hooker was going to do to the saloon and him. Hooker blamed everyone in town for the death of his son, for not defending him against an assassin. Pepper could have told him Jason got what he deserved but the code of the west was…you can’t rape a whore. Fuck him. Crawling under the covers she tossed and turned for a few minutes before going finally going to sleep.

Pepper did not know what had awakened her but when she looked around the room she found him cloaked in darkness sitting in the chair while Anthony snored blissfully beside her. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “I’ll scream.”

“No one will hear you,” he said and stood up. The next second he was crawling on the bed beside her, and she could see he was naked. Pepper found herself unable to move. “You enjoyed watching me die,” he growled softly his naked body now pressed against hers. 

“No, please don’t,” she begged.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered against her ear sending a delicious shiver through her body. She thought he whispered something against her neck, but she had become aware of his hand on her right breast now freed from the camisole. Why didn’t Anthony wake up? He played with her nipple until it ached and lust burned in her belly. Pressing himself tight against her he kissed her neck slowly, taking light nips out of her skin awakening her body to his touch. When he reached down to lower her under things, she arched her hips to help him remove them. His fingers found her hot and moist, aching to be touched. He took her left nipple into his mouth and sucked on it greedily while playing her to an incredible orgasm. Please don’t let Anthony wake up.

Her thighs parted for him, and he rose over her for one long smooth stroke. The feel of him thick and hard inside of her pushed her over the top again shaking her to the very core of her being. Free to move her arms, she wrapped them around his neck while he slowly drove deeper into her. Moving her arms down his sides, she ran her hands through the hot sweat on his skin. She grabbed his ass and pulled him towards her.

When he raised his body off hers, she ran her hands over his lean muscular breast, over his nipples, and pinched them hard bringing him to his own needed release. The thought of him cumming inside of her with Anthony lying next to them sent her into another massive release. Drained and spent he collapsed on top of her and whispered, “Now you can say you’ve been fucked by a dead man.”

Of course that wasn’t true. He was the stranger from the bar. Who else could it be?

 

Natasha was just dropping off to sleep when she heard the spurs in the hallway. He stopped a moment by her door before continuing down the passage to his room. Listening closely she heard the door open and then close. What had he wanted but had been reluctant to act upon?

 

Anthony stared in horror at his wife. “What happened to you?”

Pepper did not know what had him so stunned until she looked in the dresser mirror and saw dried blood on her clothes and face. It was all over her. Pepper's scream could be heard out the open window by everyone on the street below.

Natasha, finally taking the dead flowers down, looked up at the window and said “Good heavens, what is wrong with her?”

The stranger sitting on the bench behind her, his arms folded across his breast, a cigar in his mouth, didn’t appear to be too upset when he said, “She yells loud enough to wake the dead.”

“Bad joke,” Natasha replied wryly.

“But true.” Seeing a pair of horsemen riding into town, he added, “Today is going to be interesting.”


	3. Hell hath no fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revenge comes in many forms. Clearly the stranger wants women to suffer differently from men . Two of Hooker's men make the mistake of stopping for Death.

The man on the bench rose to his feet and stopped at the edge of the wooden walkway to watch the two men riding into town. Hooker’s men. “You don’t have to do this,” Natasha said when he stepped into the street.

He turned his head back towards her and smiled. “Yes, I do, more than you realize.” Doffing his hat he did not head towards the general store where the two men dismounted and tied their horses, but walked deliberately down the street towards the livery. Hooker’s men took note of him before entering the store.

Natasha threw the Mexican pot on the street and broke it. Damn fool men! Sitting on the bench she folded her arms across her breasts and waited to see what HE was going to do. A short while later, he came riding up the street on his white faced horse, unmistakable in a town of plain bays and sorrels. Seeing her sitting there, he reined around and approached her. “If the kitchen is still open when I get back, have dinner with me tonight.”

She stood and braced herself against the hitching post. What was it about this man that attracted her so? “Find me when you get back and we’ll have dinner…no matter what time it is.” Did she just say that? Was he imagining that there would be more than food on the table?

“I’ll do that,” he said and reined the gelding around. “I’ll just do that.” Without a backwards glance he put spurs to the horse and galloped out of town. 

 

Pepper could not be consoled. Neither Banner’s potions nor Stark’s reassurance that what she had experienced was just a dream, that no one had been in their bedroom, could calm her down. The dried blood on her clothes had to have been her own, bloody phlegm or something female in origins. But no, over and over she muttered it was the ghost, not a ghost but THE ghost.

Afraid to leave her alone, Stark brought her downstairs and let her sit at one of the tables with a glass of lemonade in front of her. No one trusted her with alcohol. She eventually sat there staring at the glass but not drinking it. The only time she looked up was when the two men from Hooker’s ranch entered the saloon for a beer. 

“He’s going to kill you,” she spoke up loud enough for everyone to hear.

Butch Walker, the older of the two, a grizzle faced man with a mean expression on his face that never softened, stopped and stared at her. “Who?”

“The ghost,” she answered and stood up, scaring the shit out of Stark.

“She’s been ill,” he apologized and hurried to stop her. “Honey, sit down and drink your lemonade.”  
Pepper stared at her husband in amazement. “He’s going to make you pay, too. All of us.”

“Pepper there is no such thing as ghosts,” he tried to reason with her. “You just had a bad dream.”

“You’ll think dream when he gets finished with all of us. Mark my words, death is here now.” She looked at the glass with disgust and turned away. Whatever had been driving her insanity seemed lifted. 

Butch Walker and Billy Martin paid the crazy woman no mind as they bellied up to the bar for some drinks before returning to the ranch. Mr. Hooker had wired ahead to tell them to order supplies for his return. A wagon would be sent to town in two days time to pick them up.

Stark, curious as to Jim Hooker’s returning mood, poured them drinks on the house and made light conversation at first, mostly on the weather and whether or not it will turn off colder and how will the cattle take it. The usual bull.

“If you want to know if he’s still mad,” Walker interrupted him, “I don’t think he’s gonna get over what happened to his boy.”

“Surely he knows we arrested the man the moment we realized what he had done,” Stark protested. 

Walker smiled grimly and tossed down the whiskey. He liked the way it burned down his throat. “I’m not privy to his thoughts right now,” he said and turned the glass over on the bar. “Finish up and let’s go,” he told Martin.

The winter sun was beginning its descent when they happened upon a black horse with a white head and two blue eyes. A moment later they spied the man lying on the flat top of a stand of rocks with his hat pulled low and his arms crossed. Walker liked the looks of the horse and decided he wanted it.

“I wouldn’t do that,” the man on the rocks said and sat up when Walker dismounted his own horse and approached the sabino. 

“Why is that?” Walker growled.

“Because he has a hellish temper when strangers mess with him,” the man said and climbed off the rocks.

“I know how to handle hellish tempers,” Walker said and reached for the quirt dangling from his saddle horn and slipped it over his right wrist. 

“Really? What do you do, beat it out of them?” the stranger asked and stopped beside his horse.

“What I need to. I think maybe I’ll take that horse.”

Walker had never seen a smile so dark and evil as what crossed the stranger’s face. The man was not afraid of them. “I think maybe not,” the stranger countered. He eased his poncho back to show that he was heeled. “Want to dance?” Walker, left handed, moved away from his horse, but the moment he attempted a draw, the stranger was in front of him with his weapon pressed hard under Walker’s chin. Martin reached for his piece, but the stranger whipped his gun around and killed him with a bullet between the eyes before returning the muzzle to Walker’s chin. “I didn’t invite him,” he growled.

Walker could not remember a time in his life when he was more afraid then now. Mrs. Stark was right; Death was walking San Miguel. “You can’t be real,” he stammered.

“And yet here I am,” the man said. “Give me the skinning knife you used on him,” he said and backed up. Walker realized this might be his only chance and jerked the knife out of his boot in hopes of using it on the stranger, but a swift kick sent Walker’s hand up and back. The knife by his own hand buried deep in his shoulder sending excruciating pain through his body. The stranger studied it a moment and holstered his gun. “That;ll work.”

“Pull it out,” Walker pleaded, unable to get it out of his body.

“I don’t think so,” the stranger said and forced Walker’s hands behind his back. Taking some rope from the saddle horn, he tied Walker’s hands behind him. “If you don’t take too long getting back to the ranch, maybe you’ll live. If not it will be a slow bloody death.” Jerking Walker around he got him into the saddle. Martin’s body was tossed over the other horse and the loose end of the rope attached to that horse. “Be careful and don’t fall off, or you will die.” 

Once he had them all tied down nice and snug, he whipped Walker’s horse with the quirt he had taken from him. Riding back to town, he hung the quirt from a hook in front of the saloon right where anyone from Hooker’s ranch would notice it. From the window in her bedroom Pepper watched him leave the quirt and then ride down to the livery to leave the horse.

Taking her pistol out of her dresser drawer, she stuck it in her dress pocket and rushed downstairs and out the doors. Running as fast as she could she found him leaving his horse in the corral while Sam threw a forkful of hay into it for the animal. “Tell them it was you!” she shouted angrily at the man and drew her gun. She had to hold it with two hands, but she damn well meant to use it. “Tell them it was you!”

With half the saloon running behind her, he lifted his hands and asked, “Tell them what?” Having his undivided attention now unsettled her. There was blood and death and sex in his eyes. What had she done?

“Tell them I’m not crazy,” she half pleaded. “Tell them it was you who…who….who raped me last night. Tell them!” He said nothing as he kept his hands up and eased towards her.

“I raped no one last night,” he answered carefully. “Remember I left the saloon before you locked it. You saw me leave.”

“You came back,” she answered desperately. He still had his hands raised but he was now standing in front of her.

“How?”

She looked confused, lost in his eyes, seeing unholy things that she should have never seen. “You’re that man they killed.”

He smiled. God how she hated his smile! “I’m very much alive,” he assured her.

“But the blood…”

“I can’t answer that,” he said and gently took the gun from her. Planting a soft kiss on her forehead that burned her skin like the fires of hell, he whispered, “Go home. It will be over soon.” He flipped the gun to her husband, saying, “She’s just tired.” 

Tears burned in Pepper’s eyes as she stared at the strange man. She knew he was that man the one who had been beaten to death, but there was no proving it, no way to explain how he wound up in her bed with Anthony asleep beside her. Anthony grabbed her arm and turned her away, but not before she asked, “You’re coming back, aren’t you? Aren’t you!”

He ignored her question. Natasha was in the crowd and he had spotted her. “I have a dinner date,” he told Sam.

“She’s not going to go crazy, is she?” the liveryman asked.

“I can only hope,” he answered and walked towards her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter will be the most pornographic chapter I've ever written for a fanfic. I need time to do it right.


	4. Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha learns the truth about the man bent on revenge

Natasha was surprised at how well he cleaned up after he arrived for supper. Soap and water and a comb through his long hair went a long way. “I told the cook to fix some lamb chops,” she explained as they entered the dining room, where a number of people were having their dinner as well. 

“I’ve never had lamb chops,” he said as she led them to a table by the window.

“They are quite good with mint sauce. I had them prepared especially for us.” 

He held the chair out for her and said, “That would be another first for me,” he said with the lazy smile that she had come to find charming. He hung his hat off the back of his chair and was impressed when she called for a bottle of chilled wine. “Why all the fine china?” he asked curiously.

“I’m tired of eating off crockery. I thought I would pretend it’s a special occasion.”

He laughed at her honesty. “Well, I’m glad you’re pretending with me,” he said and opened the bottle of wine that popped when he got the cork freed.

While he poured them a glass of wine, she folded her hands under her chin and studied him. He was handsome in a wild way, his long dark hair reminding her of a horse’s mane. “Who are you?” she asked.

He returned her thoughtful stare for a moment and then said, “Just a pour bastard who has fallen under your good graces.”

“Don’t you have a name?”

“Once,” he said and took a sip of the wine. “This is nice.”

Natasha gave up. He was not going to give up his secret. While she enjoyed the lamb chops, she was pretty sure he was not as enamored with them, although he literally sucked the meat off the bone. And she literally hated it when dinner came to an end.

“I was wondering if you would honor me with a walk,” he said and pulled her chair out for her.

“It’s a little bit chilly,” she replied and then decided ‘why not?’ “ The walk to the livery was leisurely while he smoked and she wondered what her nosey neighbors were thinking.

The big black in the corral moved towards them and welcomed his master with a soft whicker. The bond between the man and the horse was obvious.

“Does he have a name?”

“It depends on the mood I’m in,” the man laughed. 

So much mystery. Stuffing her hands in the pockets of her fur coat, she hesitated a moment and then asked, “Pepper said you raped her. Did you?”

He turned away from the horse and stared at her with such a light in his eyes. Even though it was dark, she was certain she could see a fire in them. “Her word against mine? She also said I was a ghost.”

“Are you?”

He moved so quickly she didn’t have time to react. Pressing her hand against his breast he dropped his head and pressed his lips softly against hers. “Does that feel like a dead man?” he asked against her throat, his lips scorching her skin. This time both of her hands crawled up his breast to lock around his neck while he kissed her hard and turned her body to fire and need. Drawing back, pressing his burning lips against her pale throat, he growled, “Your room or mine?”

“Yours,” she answered breathlessly.

The walk back was not as leisurely. It had been years since Natasha had been with a man after her husband’s death. Widows either remarried or remained celibate, but this man with the wild hair and fiery eyes had her aching with need. She could only guess at what he was thinking when he stopped to relight his cigar. When he lifted his head to study her, there was amusement in his eyes.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“it’s been a long time since anyone was ’friendly’ with me.”

“And why is that?” she asked as they continued walking at a more leisurely pace this time.

‘Not many nice people where I last lived.”

“And where was that?”

He smiled again. “A place where nice women don’t go,” he answered evasively.

“You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

“Nope.” 

What could he tell her? That he was not human, an image created to punish the wicked? That this more than his metaphysical attack of Pepper would be regarded as the greater sin? That the only good thing in his miserable existence would be held against him in the end? How much did he or could he tell her?  
Outside of the hotel doors, he threw the cigar aside and drew her close to plant a warm kiss on her tender lips. Eyes hot and angry watched them from the shadows but he didn’t care. Releasing her he let her enter the hotel ahead of him. She was a bold woman and did not care that Steven was at the desk. He prudently didn’t say anything when she continued upstairs.

Behind the locked door she turned into his arms and kissed him, warm and wet, tender at first and then with growing passion. Breaking away she knelt down in front of him and unbuckled his gun belt, untying it from his thigh and handing it back up to him. She ran her hand over the swollen part of him, studying him several seconds before standing up.  
“Let us make life,” she purred and stepped back to unbutton her dress. He did not know if that was even possible for him, but the idea excited him. To bury his cock in her body, to plant his seed in her womb, these thoughts darkened his passions. He was death, but life came from death.

She undressed pale and perfect and moved back on his bed, pulling the covers back against the chill of the night. When he stood before, an image of what he might have been in life, he saw that she was pleased with what stood before her.

“Come to me,” she said and held her hand out to him, and like the desperate thing that burned inside of him, he went to her. She cupped his face in her hand and slowly eased him on his back. “I want to watch you first,” she said and let her gaze travel down his lean body. She crawled over him on her hands and knees and gazed down into his curious face. “It’s been awhile,” she said and bent over to kiss him. Such a soft kiss that intensified when she moved to his throat. She did not see the way he slowly closed his eyes or the way he gasped when she bit down, but she saw how he swallowed hard when she took another nip out of his burning skin.

Sliding down his body, dragging her breasts across his skin, she paused at his left nipple and took a gentle bite out of it. His pectoral flexed under her attention but she took the sting out of it by gently sucking on it. He reached for her, but she made him lie still. To have this much man under her control was intoxicating. His cock slipped between her breasts as she moved even lower. She gazed up his body and saw the desperation on his face, and then she took him into her mouth and sucked on the sensitive head. His eyes widened for a moment and then shut tight, his fingers wrapping in her hair.

In what had been his young life, whores had shared their beds with him, but outside of hand jobs, no one had ever taken him in her mouth. And it had been so long. “I’m going to cum,” he panted.

She continued teasing his cock head while stroking him. Swallowing him deep in her throat, she stroked him where the skin was most sensitive. There was no holding back, and she stayed with him. When he could give no more, she raised her head and looked at his face. Disheveled, spent and beautiful. 

“Have I….taken the fight out of you?”

Grinning sheepishly, he replied, “Oh hell no.” Easing her beside him, he took her beautiful face in his hand and asked, “Can you show me how to do that?”

“Well, I’ll be honest, no one…”

“Oh hell no,” he stopped her. Without letting her complete her sentence, he got between her legs. “As I see it, it should be similar.” He ran his finger along her slit, easing the finger slowly inside. She was aroused and willing and shifted restlessly. Using two fingers he carefully opened her. A man who wasn’t willing to make a woman writhe under his touch wasn’t much of a man. And there it was, the tender pearl that just begged to be licked. And she jumped when he did just that. With two fingers inside of her and his mouth on her clit, he took her apart so easily. 

Gazing up her body, at the way her breasts heaved, at the way she came undone for him, sent the blood surging back through him. While she was still hot and wet, he crawled up her body, positioned himself and sank deep into her. Liquid heat enfolded him, the pleasure shooting up his spine into his brain, but the earlier orgasm held him in check. He had to build up to it. She smiled at him and ran her hands down his back and dug her nails into his flanks.

She moved suddenly and he was on his back with her on top. Sliding forward and back, her hands pressed against his breast while he played with hers was almost playful. When she wanted a kiss, all she had to do was lean down and kiss him, take his lower lip between her teeth and gently pull on it.

Sleep did not come quickly, but eventually his passion was spent and she was content to let him sleep with his head on her shoulder. She played with his hair until sleep claimed her as well. Sometime before dawn she dreamed of a man, a young man with a quick draw and challenging eyes. She saw him dying under another man’s lash, the only kindness shown him a drink of water.

Her eyes flew open and she looked around the still dark room. “You were kind to me,” he spoke from the darkness.  
“Where are you?” He stepped closer, still nude, still perfect. “You can’t be real.”

He smiled and climbed back under the covers. “Maybe I’m not,” he conceded and kissed her pale shoulder.

“But I feel you.”

“I am what you want me to be.”

She grabbed a fistful of hair and made him look at her. “I want you to be real.” Thinking about it a second, her eyes growing wild, she asked, “Is this my punishment?”

“Mine,” he countered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some characters are hard to write love scenes for, others easy. These two although I love them together are not easy.


	5. A Deadly Lover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prelude to meeting Hooker

Sam beat the damaged band for the wheel out on the anvil while the stranger sat on the top rail of the corral fence and smoked peacefully. It was cloudy overhead and threatened rain or snow for later in the afternoon, but right now it was just crisp. Mrs. Henson’s wheel lay against the building waiting for the band to be reattached while her team of draft horses dosed in their harness. Every so often Sam would pause and glance at the stranger sitting on the top rail of his corral. San Miguel wasn’t a big place and everyone knew by now that the gunfighter and the widow had spent the night together. It was none of Sam’s business but he liked the widow and hated to see her get hurt.  
The stranger became more alert and hopped off the rail. Riders were coming down the street, and he acted as if he was expecting them. Sam finished the band and moved away from the anvil to reattach it to the wheel while the five men continued their slow ride towards the livery, a dozen eyes watching them from windows and doorways. Hooker’s men.

Natasha was working on the books in the office when she overheard someone at the front desk say “trouble brewing.’ Rising from the office desk, she passed through the lobby, ignoring Steve’s call back to see for herself the brewing trouble. Steve followed and stopped on the walk to watch the exchange that was going to take place at the livery.  
“I wonder what he did to anger them?” Steve asked no one in particular.  
“He’s here to kill Hooker,” Natasha answered distantly, her mind still unable to grasp what she now knew…or thought she knew about the gunman. Who would believe her? Did she even care?

The lead horseman drew rein in front of the stranger and said, “You the bastard who knifed Walker?”  
The stranger smiled. “Yes,” he answered easily. “I see you got the message.”

“Yeah, we got it.”

Sam eased back into the barn unnoticed and then ran back to his supply room for his carbine. Five against one was a little too lopsided for his taste, and he could always say he was protecting other peoples’ property.

“I take it he survived then?”

“No thanks to you.”

“Pity. So what’s it going to be? Five against one isn’t much of a challenge,” the gunman said, the lazy smile dropping away to something more serious.” Before the mounted men could react, the gunman grabbed the first horse’s head and twisted it, sending the thousand-pound animal over on its side with the lead horseman still in the saddle. Within a heartbeat a gun materialized and the man directly behind the leader fell off his horse dead, his revolver falling from his lifeless hand to the ground.  
Sam watched from the post closest to the barn doors, his rifle ready to offer aid, but it wasn’t needed. Death needed no help. Two of the men dropped their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. Death spared them but his message was clear, Hooker was next. “I will come find him if I have to,” Death growled at the survivors who reined their horses around and galloped out of town. 

“Hooker will bring an army with him,” Sam warned the gunfighter.

“I’m counting on it,” the gunman replied easily, the lazy smile returning.

Natasha took off running with Steve hurrying behind her. The sight of two dead men had no effect on her, her eyes only for the gunman still standing. “You shouldn’t be here,” he gently scolded her.

“I saw what happened!” she panted as Steve caught up to her. “They aren’t going to quit until they kill you.”

“They can try,” he reassured her, “but it might not be that easy.”

Steve, fearing Natasha was in way over her head with this one, said, “Nat, go on back to the hotel, please.”

“He’s right. I will see you later,” the gunman told the anxious woman. She hesitated, anger flashing through her eyes for Steven. 

Steve waited until Natasha was out of hearing shot before turning to the gunman and saying, “I want you out of my hotel. I’ll refund your money.”   
The gunman considered it a moment and then inclined his head. Since he didn’t leave anything in the room there was no need to go back. And the one thing in the hotel he wanted would find him.

The weather turned worse by five o’clock, cold and dark and wet. Natasha knew Steven had thrown the gunfighter out the hotel although no words passed between her and Steven. The moment supper was over, she wrapped a scarf around her head and pulled on her heavy coat to go find him. Everything was locked up tight, the only sound breaking the stillness the soft hiss of sleet. Running down to the livery, not finding the sabino in the corral, she squeezed the door open and slipped inside. The white faced horse raised his head and looked at her. It was cold in the barn but at least it was dry.

Frustrated that he was not there, she cursed and ran back outside straight into him. “I saw you enter the barn,” he explained and bent his head to kiss her. It was quick and almost chaste. Taking her hand, he said, “Sam is renting me a backroom.”

Natasha didn’t care if it was a bed of straw in the barn so long as she could be with him, even if it meant earning Steve’s anger. Sam could not say he was surprised to see her. His shack consisted of three rooms, one he rented out to the gunman, a backroom of sorts with a cot. The only warmth came from an old stove in the main room.  
“Coffee’s hot,” he said of the pot on top of the stove.

“Want some?” the gunman asked the cold woman.

“Maybe a sip,” Natasha said and accepted a cup from her deadly lover. 

“Sorry there’s no sugar or cream,” Sam apologized. 

“It’s fine,” Natasha assured him. Besides she had not snuck away from the hotel for bad coffee. What she wanted was seated in the straight back chair beside her. To crave such a man with her heart, body and soul was maddening. He was fire to warm her, his kisses slaked her thirst, and when he pierced her in darkness, she died at his bidding only to find life. To hold him afterwards, his dark head upon her pale shoulder, so much of him still pressing her down, tasted of perfection.   
“Let’s leave together,” she whispered into that cold darkness.

He moved over, his body still pressed against hers, and said, “I can’t.”

“Or won’t?” she countered suspiciously. She heard his sigh against her skin. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m the one that’s sorry,” he whispered ruefully. “You were kind to me, and I shouldn’t have…”

She turned and grabbed his face so she could see the shine of his eyes. “Don’t think it. Don’t say it!”

“I’m not real,” he reminded her. 

“Real enough for me.”

He wondered if she really understood what he was saying. The night was pitch black and cold when he walked her back to the hotel, to a side door that she had a key for. He smoothed her hair from her beautiful face and planted a soft kiss on her lips. He suddenly threw his head up and glanced down the dark empty street and smiled. “He’s back,” he whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a long story but a brain purging for me


	6. can dead men die?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buck gets shot.

Buck did not sleep that night. After dropping Natasha off, he found the saloon still open and decided to pay it a visit. Tony Stark was wiping down the bar while Pepper sat at the pot bellied stove and warmed herself. Some old men sat with her and talked about the weather. Wild fear filled her eyes when he glanced at her.

“You’re not real!” she snapped and got up, scaring the old men beside her.

“There are people who might disagree with you,” he said smoothly and stepped up to the bar. “Rye, if you don’t mind,” he told Tony and pulled out a five dollar gold piece.

“Pepper,” Tony spoke up quietly so as not to upset her any more, “I told you it was just a bad dream.”

“You’ve got everyone fooled, but not me,” she hissed, tears filling her eyes.

He turned to her and leaned an elbow on the bar. “Mrs. Stark, I am sorry for whatever you think I did.”

She almost answered him but ran up stairs instead. He sipped at his whiskey for a moment while everyone else settled down to nervous laughs. But Mrs. Stark was not finished with him. Throwing the drink back, he set it top down on the bar. “Yah’all might wanna duck,” he said a second before she stormed down the stairs with a Navy Colt in hand. Even though she aimed it at him and fired, the kick knocked her back into the wall. Buck moved quickly to take the revolver from her while her husband hurried to get her under control.

Wild eyed she gasped, “I hit you! I know I did!”

“I’m afraid you missed, ma’am,” he said and set the Colt on the bar. “When it knocked you backwards, it went into the ceiling.”

“Harold, lock up,” Stark said and helped his trembling wife back upstairs to their bedroom.

Buck decided he needed to get back to Sam’s shack. Contrary to what he had said, the bullet had pierced his rib cage below his left breast, and it hurt like hell. Making back to his cot before the pain knocked him on his ass, he called to Sam to help him.

“What have you done?” Sam asked in disbelief and held the kerosene lantern up so he could see better. 

“Mrs. Stark took a .45 to me. I need you to get the slug out,” Buck explained with a pained expression on his face. Unbuttoning his shirt, he opened it so Sam could see the wound. At first Sam thought his eyes were deceiving him because he couldn’t see anything, then the next moment he could make out a hole and blood pumping out with every breath.   
Afraid he would kill the gunman if he poked around inside his body, Sam wanted to go wake the Doc up, but Buck would have none of it. “If you got pliers and a knife, you can get it out,” the gunman panted.

“I might kill you,” Sam warned as he left the room to find pliers and a clean knife. “Naturally I’d get blamed for killing a crazy assed white man,” he growled to himself. “And what do I tell them? Yeah I rented him a room so he could fornicate with his girl; I just didn’t know he was on Mrs. Stark’s hit list.”

“Sam, I can hear you,” Buck called back to him, his voice tight with pain.

“Then you know I’m speaking the truth,” Sam snapped. “You die and I get blamed”

“I’m not going to die,” Buck assured him.

“You got a deal going on with God?” Sam asked and returned to the room with his only clean towel.

“Not exactly,” Buck said between gritted teeth.

Sam moved the lantern so the light settled on the bullet hole. It looked bad. “These are not doctor tools,” he reminded the gunman.

“You talk a lot,” Buck said and closed his eyes.

“Best conversation in town,” Sam retorted and used his finger to poke around the hole for the bullet, while Buck clamped down on any noises he might have made. Sam felt the bullet at the tip of his finger and realized he had to cut some meat to get to it. To Buck’s credit he never made a sound, although his eyes were scrunched tight. Sam was pretty sure the gunman passed out before he finished.

Sam used the clean towel as a bandage and some old horse wrap to keep it in place. When he turned Buck over he stopped and stared at the scars that laced Buck’s back. Someone had once beaten him badly. He’d seen a man get beat like that right there in San Miguel. He finished with the wrap and eased Buck back on the pillow.

He stared at the face now. There was something horribly familiar about it. “Maybe it wasn’t God you cut a deal with,” he whispered softly.

In the morning when Sam checked on his patient, he found him up staring out the window. There was no sign that he had been lung shot. “I know who you are,” he said and offered the man a cup of coffee.

“What am I?” Buck asked curiously and took the coffee.

“Back in Mississippi, we’d call you a booger or a haint.”  
“Really? Why do you think I’m a haint?”

“Cause I know you’re the man Hooker beat to death. I saw your scars.”

Buck drank his coffee without answering right away. “Hooker’s going to pay for what he did to me,” he finally said and finished the coffee.

“Can a dead man be killed again?” Sam asked curiously, the fact he was conversing with a dead man scaring the shit out of him.

“I don’t know,” Buck answered. “Maybe we’ll find out when Hooker comes to town.”

“What about Natasha?”

“What about her?”

“I seen the way she looked at you. She loves you.”

“I feel the same, but I shoulda just let her be,” Buck said, lamenting the fact the woman loved him. “When this is over I have to leave.”

“You been busy. What happens if she gets with child? People will shame her.” Sam liked Natasha too much to see her mistreated.

Buck thought about it a moment and then said, “Let’s hope I’m only good at fornicating. Maybe dead men can’t breed.”

“I’d a not thought a dead man would ever be talking to me, but here you are,” Sam retorted sardonically.

Buck smiled but it had nothing to do with their conversation. He could feel Big Jim Hooker’s anger. He’d be coming to San Miguel very soon. “I want some breakfast. Want some?”

“You buying?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me get my coat.”


	7. Natasha's need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buck readies to meet Hooker while taking care of Natasha's need

Natasha stood at her bedroom window, hiding behind lace curtains, while watching the two men walk down the street towards the Mexican quarter. Buck stopped and lifted his eyes to her window, a smile softening the beautiful hard features of his face. Remembering his hands on her body, his lips on hers, the hard length of him invading her softness, she caught her breath as it seemed more real than memory. If he had called to her, she would have gone to him. Turning away from the window her heart racing wildly, she reached for her slip to finish dressing.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked curiously. Buck was one strange son of a bitch.

“Not a thing,” the other man answered with a grin and continued down the street. Without stopping he threw the lacy window over the saloon a quick glance. Mrs. Stark was also watching him, no doubt wondering how she missed.

Breakfast was beans and tortillas with lots of hot sauce and a small pot of cactus pear preserves. No more eggs for the rest of the winter. Black coffee with a little sugar, if wanted, but no milk from either cow or goat. Fried pork was plentiful, cut straight from the hog smoked that fall. A nice breakfast for two hungry men.

“You know,” Sam said and dipped up the bean sauce with his tortilla, “my momma could fix some mighty fine biscuits. With fresh butter and wild berry jam, a man could get fat on that alone.”

Buck, nursing his coffee, leaned back in his chair and said, “I don’t remember my mother.”

Sam looked up. “Is it because you’re…you know?”

Buck smiled and answered, “Dead? No, I remember those things. My mother worked the saloons around Austin. She died when I was little.”

Sam looked around to make sure they weren’t overheard. Leaning closer he asked, “How can you be….a haint?”

“I ain’t a haint,” Buck replied in a teasing voice. “You could say I’m a wraith.”

“Well, whatever you are, it’s not normal.”

“No, it’s not,” Buck agreed and paid for the breakfast. While Sam returned to his livery, Buck paid a visit to the Barton store. He needed to pick up a box of cartridges. Mrs. Barton, all golden haired and smelling of lilac powder was standing behind the counter watching him as he perused the gun case.

“Nice. Two boxes, please,” he said and ordered the cartridges that were kept on the shelf behind her. 

“Just two?” she asked and set them on the counter.

“Think I might need more?” he asked curiously and imagined what was hidden beneath the school marm dress.

“You are trouble, Mr….?”

“Just Buck,” he answered.

“You are trouble, Mr. Buck, and word is out how Pepper Stark tried to kill you last night.”

“Yeah, really sad how she thinks I attacked her,” Buck said and put the money on the counter. “Has she always had these delusional fits?”

There’s a way that a man can look at a woman that tells her what his inner most thoughts are, and Bobbi knew she was staring into the eyes of a very dangerous man. “I suspect there is more to you than meets the eye, Mr. Buck. A whole lot more.”

“You may be right, Mrs. Barton. You may be right at that,” he agreed and slipped the shells into the pocket of his coat. “Have a good day, ma’am.”

The rest of the day, he did nothing. Either loitering in front of the saloon, or checking on his horse, he half expected Hooker to show up, but the man did not make an appearance. Tomorrow, he told himself, it would be tomorrow.

Natasha helped clean up the dining room and kitchen after supper, but she could feel him calling her. Her body trembled at the thought of being with him again; like a mare in heat she told herself. Once all the lights were out and everyone was in bed, she slipped on her coat and ran out to him. It was cold out, ice starting to form on the windowpanes, but he wrapped her in his arms beneath the coat and all she could feel was the heat of his perfect body.

In the darkest shadows he kissed her, his tongue teasing the soft palate of her mouth. If he had hiked up her skirts and fucked her against the side of the building, she would have let him but he drew back and took her hand in his, taking her back to his bed at Sam’s shack. The cold had no control over them as he undressed her, every snap and button giving way to his agile fingers. And when his lips pressed against her pale shoulders, she shuddered with desire.

Behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist, he kissed the side of her neck while running his warm hands down her smooth flat belly. She stepped out of the garments and turned to face him, the soft glow from the potbelly stove casting a pink glow on her face and pale body. With nimble fingers she unbuttoned his shirt while offering him her lips, a kiss she poured her soul into.

Skin to skin they laid on the bunk, he crawling over her to take one taut nipple into his mouth. All he had to do was brush her intimately and she would cum, but he was in no hurry. Taking one of her hands in his, he placed it on his swollen cock. Natasha intoxicated by her power over his body moved so she could watch her effect on him. Stroking his cock long and hard, using the slick precum to tease the sensitive head, she brought him to the brink of orgasm several times but always backing off before he reached the point of no return.

Rolling over on his back, he eased her up and whispered, “I want your pussy.”

Almost blind with lust, she turned around and took the head of his cock into her mouth as he lowered her to his mouth. He tasted salty at first. Sucking greedily on his cock, she played with his balls and the tender area between his legs. But his tongue was working wickedly on her pussy. Before she knew it the first tingling of orgasm filled her belly with need. He held her tighter with one arm across her back while sucking harder on her clit and finger fucking her slick pussy. She came undone on his face. 

Needing only a second to recover, she turned back to his cock and swallowed it. Oh, she wanted to watch him, see the light in his eyes melt into pure darkness. She wanted to touch him more intimately than he’d ever been touched before, to drive him to the moment of pure sweet madness. Pausing only a moment, she got on her back with him on all fours over her. He fought the urge to fuck her face, but she used her hands on his body to drive him deeper and deeper into his lust. With her hands free she was able to tease his nipples, stroke his cock and toy with those tender areas.

She couldn’t see the way his mouth went slack as his orgasm built, or the blind look in his eyes when everything turned inward. He moaned deeply while she continued to milk him and suck on the engorged head. He shook violently as he spilled his seed into her mouth.

Before morning he fucked her long and slow with purpose. A woman in heat craves cock, and his cock soothed the need deep in her belly. Pulling her close, he kept her warm when the fire in the stove gave out. He slept a little, but as the first light of morning created a gray haze out his window, he opened his eyes and smiled. Hooker was coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word wraith is of Scottish origins. It just seemed appropriate


End file.
